Episode #1093
A lot of men think they’re being grounded by staying calm, staying quiet, or keeping the peace, but what if that’s not grounded at all? In this episode, Doug and Tim break down how men often collapse emotionally without realizing it, and why that shutdown is just another form of reaction.
You’ll hear real stories, including a wake-up call from Doug’s own marriage, and how what he thought was self-control was actually stonewalling. This isn’t about being more stoic or strong. It’s about being real, being present, and learning to lead emotionally instead of withdrawing.
They explain how men slip into shame, disconnect from their partner, and unknowingly make it all about themselves. You’ll learn how to spot the difference between reacting and being grounded, and how to catch yourself before things spiral. The goal isn’t perfection. It’s about awareness, ownership, and showing up differently. If you’ve ever felt like you were doing the right thing only to have it backfire, this conversation is worth a listen.
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Transcription
Doug Holt 0:00
I said, a man who cannot be open, in touch with his emotions, is both dishonest and dangerous.
Tim Matthews 0:07
Another way in which guys can react is by shutting down.
Doug Holt 0:10
When you’re truly grounded, you don’t seek external validation above your own.
Tim Matthews 0:16
Remaining grounded means remaining open, not collapsing or withdrawing.
Doug Holt 0:21
I was reacting. I didn’t know it. I thought I was doing the right thing. I thought I was taking the high road. Turns out, I was going below.
Doug Holt 0:41
Hey guys, welcome to another episode of the TPM Show. Today, we’re going to talk about a common misconception and why most men think they’re being grounded, but they’re really actually collapsing. Tim, thanks for being here again.
Tim Matthews 0:56
Man, oh man, it’s a pleasure. I love it. I’m glad we made the time.
Doug Holt 1:00
This is great. It’s a lot of fun to do these with you again, getting it back. We’ve got Japan coming up. I’m guessing by the time these come out, you and I, at least I might be flying out there early. I know I’m flying out early, but I might actually be on Japanese soil.
Tim Matthews 1:16
Wow. Exciting. It is exciting.
Doug Holt 1:19
It is exciting. But that’s not what we’re here to talk about today. We were talking about this before we hit record, and this idea that a lot of guys get confused, right? We talk about DEER mode: defend, excuse, explain, react, right? So that’s an acronym that we use quite often. Whereas the WOLF is wise, open, loving, and fierce.
And so a lot of guys will think they’re being grounded, when in reality they’re actually collapsing. And their wife knows it, and they’re the only one that’s not getting it.
Tim Matthews 1:54
Completely. I’ve dealt with this a lot in the recent months. And in Japan, we’re doing a deep dive. One of the sections is mapping deer dynamics, where we’re going to do a deep dive into some of this stuff.
And so I was in a conversation with one of the guys that I work with a few months ago, and he was breaking down the situation for me where his wife was complaining. And he said, “But Tim, I remained really grounded.”
I said, “Okay, awesome. So what did you say?”
“Well, I didn’t say anything.”
“Okay. How come? What do you mean you didn’t say anything? How did you validate her in this?”
“Well, I didn’t, because it’s like she’s stuck on repeat. She just keeps on going through the same loop.” You know, it’s kind of like Charlie Brown, and he’s getting animated.
So straight away, now he’s telling me, I can tell he hasn’t remained grounded. Because if he’s grounded, he’s going to remain open, right?
So as we break it down further, what has really happened is, just because he hasn’t reacted, well, you can react in different ways. In the past, he would have reacted by blowing up. So in his mind, reaction in DEER mode looks like fight, ultimately.
But another way in which guys can react is by shutting down. So they’ll withdraw. They’ll withdraw their presence. They’ll still be there physically, but emotionally they will have collapsed. To your point at the beginning, they will have become ungrounded. And that’s what happened in this situation.
He had collapsed. Essentially, he’d withdrawn emotionally. So he was there physically, but wasn’t there emotionally. He’d fallen into shame because he heard her criticism a particular way, and he internalized it. And thus he fell into shame.
And as he fell into shame, in that moment, he made it about himself and stopped making it about the context of what happened. If he would have remained grounded and open, he would have probably felt guilt. He would have been able to validate her experience. He would have been able to get curious about what was going on for her.
But he didn’t. And I get it. I’ve been there. We’ve all been there. It can be hard at times to pull yourself out of that when you fall into that spot.
But I think, to your point at the beginning, there’s a misconception here. I think a lot of men think, “Oh, well, I didn’t fly off the handle,” or “I didn’t do what I would have done before. I stayed there and I remained calm, so thus I remained grounded.”
Well, remaining grounded means remaining open, not collapsing or withdrawing.
Doug Holt 4:39
I love that, and we’re doing a deep dive into all this in Japan. And unfortunately, guys, Japan is sold out. If you want to get on a waitlist, in case inevitably one or two guys have something happen where they’re not able to make it, a last-minute family emergency, reach out to your coach in the app so you can get there. Because this is what we’re diving deep into in a way that most men have never experienced.
And this reminds me of the last Alpha Reset I was at. I was co-leading this with Coach Neil, and we had a guy there who said, “I’ve studied all the Stoics. I know how to be stoic. I’ve studied them all.”
And when we look at the O in WOLF as open, and the L as loving, this guy was stuck. And I told him, I said, “Look, Seneca, a very well-known Stoic philosopher, said a man who cannot be open, in touch with his emotions, is both dishonest and dangerous. Dishonest and dangerous.”
And most guys think, I’ll just be stoic. And if one of the top Stoics is telling you that just being stoic makes you dishonest and dangerous, you might want to reread some of your stoicism and understand what it really means. And this is why we teach engaged indifference. Now, the indifference part, a lot of guys get real focused on, but to your point, they’re missing the engaged part at the same time. To be engaged and be indifferent.
Tim Matthews 6:15
I’ve been practicing indifference for a while.
Doug Holt 6:19
And so when you just shut down, is that better than reacting? That is a version of reacting. By the way, shutting down is a reaction.
And the Gottman Institute, the Gottman theory, talks about stonewalling. I remember when Erin and I were in a dark, dark spot, and I thought I was being a better man by not yelling at her. If she yelled at me, by not reacting, I would just close down, right?
I was never physically abusive. I thought, you know what, I’m going to be a great guy. I’m not going to yell at my wife. I’m just going to shut it all down and call it a day, right? That’s called stonewalling.
I was reacting. I didn’t know it. I thought I was doing the right thing. I thought I was being the better man, the better husband.
Erin told me one time, when we were going through it, it was a nasty time, and I was doing just that. I was just looking at her, cold, so closed off. It was ridiculous, impenetrable. And I was just being stoic.
And she looked at me and said, “I would rather you hit me than close down, because when you shut me out, it hurts more.” And I was like, what are you talking about? Woman, I’ve never hit you. I’ve never hit a woman in my entire life. I would never do it. It’s just not in my ethos.
And I used to box, so she knew this. I could hit. And so for her to say that me closing down, which I thought was the better thing to do, Tim, hurt her more than me actually physically hitting her, that was a wake-up call for me.
It was a long time ago now, but what a wake-up call. And to admit that I was reacting. I thought I was taking the high road. Turns out, I was going below. I was digging tunnels. I was so low, and I had no idea the pain and suffering I was causing my wife because of it.
Tim Matthews 8:24
And oftentimes, there’s a lot of pain and suffering going on in the man, right, that causes him to go into this mode. Especially if there’s internalization, and with it shame, there are things that typically have been and are going on within him that remain unhealed.
I’m not saying that was the case for you. There could be a different trigger. But for a lot of the guys that we see, there are definitely wounds, if you will. We’ll just call them that. They’re open wounds. They haven’t yet healed.
And it’s these wounds that are getting ripped open even further in these exchanges. But the issue with that as well, in that moment, is when the guy’s getting triggered and falling into shame, and it comes out either in him erupting or going quiet or whatever it may be.
He internalizes it. It becomes about him and his experience. I’m wrong. I’m bad. What’s wrong with me? I’ve done it again. I’ll never get this right. I just can’t. They’re all I statements. And it completely disconnects him from the experience with his partner.
And he moves away from guilt, which would have kept it about her and her experience. You know, tell me more. I’m sorry you feel that way. Or whatever. Even taking ownership for his part in it, right?
Because he stops hearing what he’s done, internalizing the content of it. And it can be really tough for guys to break out of. It can be really tough for guys to even realize that they’re in it. A lot of guys don’t.
Doug Holt 10:06
Most guys don’t. I didn’t know when I was in it, man. It took that wake-up call from my wife, and I dug deep. There was no TPM around back then, right?
And I took every course I could find, read every book I could find, and nothing talked about it in a way that resonated with me as a man. There was nothing. Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus, it’s good stuff, but there was nothing set up to be formulaic on how to actually behave.
To be engaged, but yet indifferent on the outcome. To own my side of the street. And I hate to admit it, but I was a victim. I was playing the victim card. And most men play the victim card.
Guys hate it when I tell them that they’re being a victim. I hate it too, but it’s the truth. The truth shall set you free. It’s getting to that truth of the way that we’re acting and showing up and behaving.
Yes, my wife had stuff to do. Yes, she needed to do her work. But honestly, I needed to do mine too. That’s what was really going on.
Because I wasn’t leading that stage, the emotional stage of our marriage. I wasn’t leading that part. I was leading financially. I was leading in all kinds of other ways, typical male, check-the-box situations. But I wasn’t leading in that area, and I didn’t know how to. I was never taught how to do it.
I took communication classes in college, but it was like negotiation. Getting to Yes was a class I took. It was all about negotiating. That doesn’t work in your marriage. Or active listening. I can repeat every word you just said verbatim. I’m listening. And she’s like, no, you’re not hearing me.
I used to be so frustrated. And then I got it. There’s the intent behind it. That’s why we teach The Hidden Motives Technique. That solves that problem.
So when guys get into this mode of complete shutdown and think they’re grounded, the best thing they can do is stop lying to themselves and realize, no, you’re dysregulated. I get that you feel like you’re doing the right thing. Totally get it. That’s what we’ve been taught as men.
But it’s the wrong thing. I’m telling you right now, as a guy who’s been down that road, the bridge is broken down that road. There’s no pass. You turn around and take a different road. You’re not going to make it.
Tim Matthews 12:43
And if that happens, you are no good to anybody. So if you find yourself in this DEER mode, where you’ve shut down the amygdala, the smoke alarm, you know, your big, bad, scary wife is how she’s perceived in that moment, even though she’s probably this small, petite, you know, cute little thing, the amygdala doesn’t see it that way. And so if you do shut down in that moment, the shutdown is going to typically come in four ways. You’ve got fight, which is the most common that a lot of the guys will resonate with. You’ve got flight, where they just want to get out of there. Freeze, which is a common one as well, and fawn. Fawning is one that’s less common. That’s where guys will just lie.
Doug Holt 13:26
Hey, guys, I just want to share something with you. I’m sure we can both agree that in order to fix something, you need to know what’s broken. And not only do you need to know what’s broken, but you need a step-by-step methodology on how you can fix it. That’s the easiest way to do it, right? Otherwise, you’re going to be toiling with things. That’s why I created a free training, a training that not only shows you how you got to where you are, where your relationship is missing that love, respect, admiration, and even intimacy that it used to have, but how you get it back. How do you retain that, where your wife’s looking at you the same way she used to look at you when she said, “I do”? You know, I don’t know about you, but for me, when my wife looks at me like I’m her man, that feels like I can conquer the world, and I want that for you. Simply go over to https://fixmarriage.thepowerfulman.com/scales. That’s thepowerfulman.com/scales, and I have a free video training for you. You can just click play and see if this resonates for you. Now, back to the podcast.
Tim Matthews 14:28
To try and make themselves look better. But if you’re in any of those responses, and you can recognize it, then calling a timeout, ultimately, which I know sounds a little bit tactical. I wouldn’t necessarily say, “I need to call a timeout,” but you might want to say, “Hey, I can see that you are really upset right now, and I understand how important this conversation is. I just need 15 minutes. I just need to regroup. I’m no good to anyone right now. This is really triggering me,” or whatever it may be. I just need 15 minutes. Can you give me 15 minutes, and I’ll come back, and let’s continue the conversation? Typically, guys will need longer than that to calm down a bit.
Doug Holt 15:15
But sorry, you did something that was, I want to point out, because it’s brilliant, and a lot of guys miss it, is you told her when you’re going to come back. A lot of guys just go, “I need space.” They throw their hands up and then walk out the door. Or, “Talk about this later,” right? Man, I did that. I was king of walking out the door. Me too, right? And, boy, I thought I was doing the best thing. I really did. Man, it’s so funny to look back, you know, 20 years, if you look at your younger self or whatever.
And what I’ve learned, take it from me, boys, what I’ve learned is you need to close the loop. “I can’t talk about this right now. I need 15 minutes,” or, “I’ll talk about it tonight,” or, “We’ll revisit this conversation tomorrow.” She needs to have that loop closed for her, and you do too, by the way.
So if this happens and she says, “I don’t want to talk about this right now,” you have the right to request, “Great. No problem. When are we going to talk about it?”
So that’s a side note. I know that’s not the topic of this, but guys, for boundaries and everything else, miss that one a lot too. Close the loop.
What Tim did there was brilliant. He said, “Hey, look, we’ll come back in 15 minutes. We’ll finish that conversation.” And like you said, most guys need longer than 15 minutes to do it and breathe. And breathe. When you are triggered, hijacked, whatever you want to call it, you are not breathing. Chances are you are holding your breath, so take a few deep, deep breaths.
One thing I did early on in my journey, Tim, when I was trying to get to this state, is I would just tell myself to breathe 10 times. And it wasn’t the best thing, because I’m in my head thinking this while she’s talking, but those are baby steps to get me where I wanted to go, right? I was just, “Breathe. Don’t say anything. Ten breaths.” I didn’t do it out loud like that, but you get the idea, and that helped.
And you get calmer and calmer, and you’re more regulated. And guess what? As I got calm, and anybody that has kids knows this, as I got calm, guess who else got calm? My wife. My kids are going crazy. If I go crazy, it doesn’t work, right? I bring their energy down by calming them, by helping them self-regulate, right? Co-regulation, if you will. You can do that with your wife too. You can help her co-regulate, but you’re remaining calm yourself.
Tim Matthews 17:45
It’s a great point if you can catch yourself in that moment and remember to breathe, because the breath has definitely tightened up. If you can catch yourself in that moment, perfect, right?
If you need to take that pause, for me, if I need to take the pause, I’ve got to move. I need to move. And honestly, I just need to verbalize everything that’s going on in my mind out loud. It isn’t usually very pretty. It’s very unfiltered, but I’ve got to get it out, and then I can come back a bit calmer.
And that’s when you can use hidden motives, right? Otherwise, if you’re in it and you’ve become dysregulated, like shit, what’s that thing I’m supposed to say? How am I supposed to, how’s it supposed to go? What is it? Then you’re not even with the conversation at that point. You’re just trying to remember how to deploy the tool.
But I think one thing that helped me, and has helped a lot of the guys, is just understanding what the mapping of it looks like. “Oh, actually, I wasn’t grounded.” “Oh, I thought I was actually grounded.” Guys literally just have the misconception. I don’t think they’re trying to kid themselves. I think they genuinely thought, in that moment, and believed, “Oh, great, I haven’t reacted, so therefore I’m grounded.”
But I think let’s take the conversation in that direction. What does it look like to remain grounded in that piece? Map that out for the guys. In your opinion, what does it look like?
Doug Holt 19:14
So what does it look like to be grounded? Grounded means you are so secure with yourself that whatever somebody else says or thinks does not affect your belief of yourself. Said another way, I know you’re asking what it looks like, but I just want to give this description. I can go to a visual for you.
When you’re truly grounded, you don’t seek external validation above your own. So if I’m, well, Tim and I will be in Japan, and say Tim says something about me. I respect him. Tim and I are very close, so his opinion carries a lot of weight with me, and my opinion about myself carries more. So if Tim says something, I’m going to think about it and give it a lot of consideration, but it’s not going to make me react to it.
My wife, same thing. A random stranger, whatever, they don’t know me. I know myself really well because I’ve done the work. So when I sit in that grounded state, no one can mess with you. You’re unflappable in that state. Your breath is regulated. You’re just taking in new information, new dialogue.
So what does that look like? A grounded man is in the eye of the storm, and he’s just there. He is there observing the things that are going on around him. They’re not affecting him.
Now, if your wife’s yelling at you and she’s screaming, does that affect you? You can still be grounded and calm her down. Say, “Hey, you’re not going to talk. Nobody talks to me that way, and that includes you.” And set your boundaries very, very firm. I would.
And you get to stay in that eye of the storm knowing who you are as a man. If you don’t, right, most men don’t know who they are. I know it sounds weird. Get your butt to an Alpha Reset. I’m not saying that to serve me. I’m saying that to serve you. Get your butt to an Alpha Reset.
Find a way to get there. Talk to one of our advisors. Tell them, “I need to get there.” They’ll find a path for you. They’ll find a path for you. But get there. That’s the fastest way. Four days strips away all the BS and allows you to see the man you really are when you’re not in that state or you don’t know who you are.
At a deep level, you’re going to take external validation from everyone: what your wife says about you, what your friends say, your colleagues, your parents, your kids, the media, your boss, your coworkers, your employees, whoever. You’re taking all that in as who you are, as your identity, and you start piling it on, and you become somebody you’re not.
That sucks. I’ll tell you right now, it sucks. And maybe you’re emulating David Goggins or somebody like that, or the Stoics. And those are aspirational people. They’ve got their demons too. But you want to get to the true you first. And when you’re at the true you, you are truly grounded. You can’t be otherwise.
You get to hold your ground, calm, even breath. And you’re really an observer. You become an observer of the situation. And that’s what a leader is. You observe rather than react, and you’re able to take time in.
Tim Matthews 22:37
I think, in terms of some practicals, and I’m so excited to go through this with the guys in Japan, I think the stuff that we’re doing, be it this, the stuff that, anyway, I’m not going to go through it all. But in terms of some somatic, if you will, some bodily cues that a listener could take on board if he’s wanting to try and remain more grounded in the face of his wife’s complaint or something.
To Doug’s point, to your point, I think the breath is one of the keys for sure, because the stomach will often tighten. So if you can keep the stomach soft and take long breaths, I think the knees can often lock up. So if you’re aware of that and you can have just softer knees and feel your feet on the ground and be intentionally connected to the ground, that can help too.
The brow can start to furrow as you, like, sink your head down. So you want to just pay attention to that and try and relax the face a little bit. The chest can tighten as well. So if you can open up your chest a little bit, either shoulders back or whatever it may be. Hands can begin to clench a little bit, not quite fists, but they can feel like there’s tension there.
If you can have palms open and relax those a little bit, these are all things you can do to affect your posture and your biochemistry, to then make things like The Hidden Motives Technique so much more powerful.
Because the other thing to this is, I think, what, 70% or 80% of communication is nonverbal. So while you may say the right things with the hidden motives, it kind of goes to Erin’s point, right? And you’re saying, “I’m listening to you,” while you’re not hearing me, right? You’ve got to make sure that whatever he’s saying to her is felt, that it’s the felt sense of what you bring into the interaction as well.
But it’s an absolute game changer. When you bring this level of awareness to your interactions, it can have a huge, huge impact. Huge.
Doug Holt 24:47
It’s gigantic. Your physiology is the fastest way to your psychology, right? It’s the fastest access point.
The one clarification I want to give there is, you talk about chest out, shoulders back. Don’t posture. Don’t puff your chest out like you’re trying to freaking start a fight. I just see, Tim, hundreds, thousands of men around the world go, “Oh, Tim Matthews said this is what I’m gonna do,” and that causes a lot of problems. It’s just being in a natural, relaxed posture. It’s being smooth, right?
Tim Matthews 25:23
Not closed down, essentially, where the shoulders round.
Doug Holt 25:29
You’re relaxed. You’re in flow when you’re in that state. So you know when you’re in a state of being actually, truly grounded.
And I love how, you know, we kick this off, or you kick this off, this idea that a lot of men think they’re grounded. We have guys that go through the program and I go, “I’m good, I’m good, I’m grounded.” And you meet them at an event and you’re talking to them like, “Whoa, no, you’re not grounded, buddy. We’ve got to work on a few things here. Let’s get you in that state you need to be in, because you deserve to be there.”
And no one’s perfect. Man, I’m not perfect. I still react at times. I still go into, quote, DEER mode. It’s very rare for me to do it, very rare. And when I do, I catch myself very quickly, and I laugh at myself. I laugh at myself all the time because I do a lot of dumb shit. But, you know, I’m human.
You get to laugh at yourself and enjoy this journey a little bit, right? You get to laugh at the little things in your life. Make it easy. Make it fun.
Tim Matthews 26:36
I love that, and I think that’s one of the key pieces, right? When the guys are met with these criticisms, the self-judgment that kicks in, right? Because they see themselves as high achievers, almost like a perfectionist mentality.
So when the wife’s bringing a complaint like this, there’s this idea that they failed, and they start taking themselves too seriously. Whereas if they could laugh at themselves a little bit more and not have such self-judgment around themselves, I think it would help them not fall into that mode as much.
Doug Holt 27:06
100% would. And I think you bring up a good point, guys. When you find yourself thinking, if you’re right now going, “Crap, Tim’s talking about me,” or “Doug’s talking about me. I thought I was being grounded,” don’t criticize yourself again. We are awesome at beating ourselves up.
Like there’s that old adage that if you talked to anyone else the way you talk to yourself, you would have no friends. None. So start talking to yourself like your best friend and laugh at yourself.
You know, when I do screw up, and again, I’m human, I do, I laugh at myself. Like, “Dude, what are you doing, man?” And I just chuckle a little bit, and I get back on path.
When I criticize myself, when I’m mad at myself, when I’m angry at myself, what do I do? I get down, and I focus on what I’m mad about, and I stay in it longer. But when I laugh at myself, and if you meet me in person, I’m very lighthearted, unless you’re screwing up your coaching, then I’ll come down on you hard, but otherwise, I’m lighthearted, and I laugh a lot.
I make a lot of jokes, most of them bad, but I laugh, so it’s good. I like to do that. And so when I laugh at myself, that gives me an access point to get back on track much faster. Much faster.
When you take yourself too seriously, you lose the game. You just lose.
Tim Matthews 28:27
So true.
Doug Holt 28:29
Awesome. Tim, well, like I said, man, always good having you back. It’s been fun getting these episodes out there.
Gentlemen, I hope you enjoy them. If you do, let us know, right? We’re doing our best to put out as much content as we can to help you guys. We put out everything. There’s nothing that’s kept behind a gate. We’re not gatekeeping here at all.
Obviously, we have coaches and coaching programs to run through, should you feel called forward to follow a proven methodology that is at your disposal. All you have to do is reach out to VIP. That’s Very Important Person, right? VIP@thepowerfulman.com. Shoot a quick email. If you’re on your phone right now, shoot one. Just say, “I want to talk to an advisor.” You’ll get on a call. It’s simple. It’s easy.
All I do ask is that if you do get on a call, you show up. You show up big. You show up someplace where you’re quiet, and you show up to the call. Have the respect of the other person on the other line. They’re probably a father, a husband, someone who’s been through our program, who’s out here to help and give you advice and advise you. That’s it.
So give them the same respect that you would want to get. And in the meanwhile, in the moment of insight, take massive action. We’ll see you next time on the TPM show.
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